‘m fond of a scene from an old movie, set in pioneer days, that features a frontiersman who stops at a wayside inn for supper and a place to sleep. He sits down at the table and asks what the innkeeper is serving.
“Mutton,” the man says, in a tone one might use to announce, “burnt turnip greens.”
“Mutton,” the frontiersman repeats, smiling in anticipation. The innkeeper fails to notice the smile, and curtly tells his customer where he can go, if mutton isn’t to his taste.
The frontiersman cheerfully tries to explain that he likes mutton, but the innkeeper storms out anyway, returning with a miniscule bowl of awful-looking mush that he slams down defiantly in front of the man at the table. The frontiersman takes up his spoon reluctantly, shaking his head and muttering to himself, “Folks ‘round here don’t like me near as well as some places I’ve been.”
All over the world, Christians are discovering that the affections of individuals and nations are not nearly so warm as we once imagined them to be.
Governments now see us as competitors – as people whose generous, selfless labors on behalf of others could erase their dependence on government funds and political agendas. Individuals see us as a threat to their treasured delusions … their zeal for their own righteousness, their self-serving moral codes.
American evangelicals spook each other with premonitions of coming persecution. We try to predict how badly things will go for us, and how soon, and from what direction. Like Belshazzar at the feast, a lot of us can read the writing on the wall – but aren’t sure what it means. We each have our guesses. Some of us may be right.
Pastor Shelton Vishwanathan doesn’t have to guess. He has seen his future, repeatedly. A few months ago, he came face to face with it again in Tiryani, a village in northeast India, when he suddenly found himself surrounded by six brutal locals who clearly didn’t want him there.
Vishwanathan would be the first to admit that he brought this situation, in large measure, on himself. India has become increasingly hostile to Christians in recent years, with Hindu extremists emboldened by the tacit support of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Holy days like Easter have become a kind of open hunting season on evangelicals. Services are disrupted … churches are burned … pastors and Christian leaders are targeted for beatings – even murder. Christian laypersons are framed for petty crimes and forced to pay fines that go to support Hindu nationalism. Even children en route to Christian summer camps have been detained and kept locked away from their parents.
Indian believers often choose not to report these incidents, knowing many of the police are sympathetic to the extremists. Global watch lists now count India among the 10 most dangerous places in the world to practice the Christian faith.
Vishwanathan knows all of this. The pastor of a small home church of 18 people, he himself has been attacked several times. Two years ago in his home district, he was pushed off his scooter, then took a beating that left him with a broken hand and foot. Police officers warn him he’s been singled out for death by some in his community.
But the pastor knows his calling. He lives to minister the love of Christ, to speak the truth of the Gospel. In a nation teeming with sickness and poverty, crowded with idols and false deities, there is always someone else who needs the message Vishwanathan has to offer.
So, a few months ago, he bought a used scooter, loaded up some Gospel pamphlets, waved goodbye to his family, and headed out on a solitary mission trip.
On a Tiryani street, he was approached by the six extremists, who demanded that he stop distributing his tracts. “Fine,” Vishwanathan told them, and moved to drive off. Before he could, they yanked the key from his scooter, grabbed his cell phone, and told him he was about to become their sacrifice to their god.
Then came the heavy blows to his head.
He came back to consciousness in a pitch-dark room. He lay on a cold floor, bleeding and yelling for help. No answer.
Days went by. Long, empty days. No food, no water. Minutes crawling into hours.
Day and night, he yelled himself hoarse. Nothing. Had they left him to starve? Would they come back to kill him? Nothing for it but to yell. And yell. And wait.
On the seventh day, he suddenly heard a knock at the door … then the cracking voice of an elderly woman. The door was bolted, she said. She trembled at the idea of unlocking it. What if the people who had done this to him now came after her?
He had nothing to bargain with but the truth. He told her what had happened. That, if she did nothing, he would die. That he thought maybe God Himself had sent her along to help him.
The moments it took her to think about that must have seemed as long as the week gone by. In the end, though, she opened the door. Gave him food and water. Helped him on his way.
She wasn’t the only one. A series of brave and merciful strangers kept crossing his path, slowly helping him make the long way back home.
No one was waiting there. After searching for days all over the district, his family had given up hope of seeing Vishwanathan again. They’d sold some furniture and used the money to move to his wife’s hometown in nearby Nepal. He had no cellphone for calling them, no money for a pay phone, no scooter on which to follow after them.
His landlord heard what had happened – and evicted him. It’s not healthy to help people the extremists want dead.
But others … others kept stepping quietly out of the shadows. Some brought food. Some gave him money. Some helped him make connections with people who might know where his family was. After a few weeks, he found them. Then other neighbors – some Christians, some just caring – provided the money to bring his wife and children home. Vishwanathan found someone brave enough to rent them another house.
The pastor decided not to press charges. “I survived only by God’s grace,” he says. “I am overjoyed to see the Lord’s hand in every situation, over the past two months. My family – who thought I must have been lost and died – have returned to see me alive.
“We give thanks and praises to the Lord.”
He is saving for another used scooter. And collecting tracts for his next mission effort.
When the persecution comes for the rest of us – in Europe, in Latin America, in Canada, in the U.S. – it will surely look like this.
Sudden, unreasoning brutality. Lonely suffering and loss. Mercies. Miracles. A few faithful friends. Others, less faithful, stepping away to take shelter in the shadows.
And the kindness of strangers.
Will we hear God, in those dark rooms? In the long silences? Will we give thanks, to be counted worthy of such sufferings? Will we, like that wounded Indian pastor, wade willingly, joyfully back into the midst of those who aren’t nearly so glad to see us as they used to be?
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